The effects of costless pre-play communication: Experimental evidence from games with Pareto-ranked equilibria

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Blume, Andreas; Ortmann, Andreas
• 署名单位: Charles University Prague; Czech Academy of Sciences; Economics Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences; Czech Academy of Sciences; Pennsylvania Commonwealth System of Higher Education (PCSHE); University of Pittsburgh
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC THEORY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0022-0531
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jet.2005.03.001
• 发表日期: 2007
• 页码: 274-290
• 关键词: Coordination games; order-statistic games; cheap talk; experiments

摘要

Cheap talk is shown to facilitate coordination on the unique efficient equilibrium in experimental order-statistic games. This result is roughly consistent with theoretical predictions according to which cheap talk promotes efficient Nash play. The evidence concerning the mechanisms that theory appeals to is mixed: Frequent agreement of messages and actions is consistent with messages being viewed as self-committing. Risk in the underlying game and the absence of self-signaling messages may explain why message profiles are not unanimous. Time-varying message profiles can be interpreted as evidence for players trying to negotiate equilibria and/or trying to rely on secret handshakes. (c) 2005 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.